Santa comes to Cusco!

COUNTRY: Peru
PROGRAM: UniBreak
PROJECT: Teaching & Construction
WRITTEN BY: Kathy Pan

Our last week at Pumamarca meant the Sports Carnival, our last classes, the end of year Christmas party, and our farewell.

The (hopefully annual) Sports Carnival was held on Sunday, which meant most of the students were with their families at home or at the markets, but we ended up with enough to make 4 groups who were split into house colours Red (Koalas), Blue (Kangaroos) and Green (Crocodiles). They rotated through long jump, high jump, shotput, 100m and 400m (really 300m or so :P). We gave prizes for each race, and also added points to a combined grand tally of the house colours. The kids got really competitive and it was a lot of fun! It was also nice to hang out with them outside of class. We finished up the morning with an oven-cooked lunch of pizzas and garlic bread.


The Christmas party was something special. It was the big fun party after classes had ended - there were Christmas presents and yummy food, and it was our last day at school. All the students and teachers gathered around the main stage with chairs from their classrooms, and one by one each grade went up to perform their Christmas piece. Then came our farewell, where each volunteer pair was called up and given a speech, a card and flowers (and some, a handful of confetti!) from our grade, and a speech from Nico, our in-country partner. It was very touching.

We also gave out the Sports Carnival trophy to the Blue House, and we gave presents to Nico, Rufino and Memo, who all had been with us for our month in Cuzco. Afterwards, one of our volunteers dressed up as Santa Claus and gave out presents - the kids loved it! There was so much food as well: chocolate panettone bread, coco milk, sausage rolls, pastries and jelly. The fiesta ended with our departure, and it was so sad. Our final goodbyes and hugs with our kids. My teacher started tearing up, which is when I really started to lose it. And then our never-failing bus wouldn't start up on our final trip away from Pumamarca...

Leaving Cuzco was heartbreaking. Most of us stayed on to travel around further, but we all had to say goodbye to our host families. To our mamas who had welcomed us with open hearts, who cooked and cleaned for us, and who worried about us when it was cold outside. How could we thank them enough? Our presents from Australia barely covered the surface of our gratitude. We said goodbye to our roommates, our rooms, our homes, our street, San Jeronimo, Cuzco, Peru...